Customer Transparency Is More Important Than Ever

Transparency with customers – what do we mean by transparency?

What is customer transparency? That’s a good question.

Online shopping can lead to returns and bad reviews if you don’t ensure your product descriptions are accurate. Simply put, transparency ensures “What you see is what you get.” Customers should always feel confident in their purchases, knowing for certain that the products they view on your site are EXACTLY what they will receive upon purchase. If your product descriptions don’t reflect the product accurately, returns and bad reviews are sure to follow.

Transparency in sales – key areas to maintain consistency

So, where do you need to ensure your product descriptions are transparent? Key areas include the “what’s” of your product, such as:

• Sizing
• Color
• Fit
• Materials

These details must be consistent across your selling channels to avoid inaccurate information and confusion. But you also want to optimize your product descriptions, not just with keywords to help customers find you, but also with the information customers most likely need for complete transparency. Completely transparent product descriptions answer the common questions that move customers along their customer journey.

What separates your products from the competition? Where and when would your customer find the best use for your product? What problems does your product solve? When applicable, you also want to explain how it works for items such as tools or even fashion products such as scarves. Your product information should make your customer’s choices easier.

Customer transparency – new technologies present new opportunities

Enjoyable shopping experiences are effortless. New technologies present new opportunities to boost your customer experience. They also make your life easier. New technologies that help deliver transparency include:

Wair

If you sell apparel online, size and perfect fit always matter. Wair is a “virtual fitting room” sizing solution that enables customers to make confident purchases. This personalized, accurate virtual fitting experience sets you apart from the competition, using the world’s largest database of human body scans. Algorithms in hand with customer reviews and feedback create product size specs for best-in-class size recommendations that reduce returns by an average of 23%.

Pimberly

Pimberly is a product information management system (PIM) designed to provide accurate, consistent product descriptions and images. Because product information is at the heart of your sales, storing your product information in one central location enables you to keep high-quality product information up to date and consistent. Pimberly manages the following:

• SKUs
• Product codes and names
• Stock data
• Weight, dimensions, materials, colors for products and packaging
• Key features, certifications, available parts, and accessories
• Shipping information
• High-quality images, product videos, 360 and 3D views
• Downloadable PDF documents such as manuals, sizing charts,
• Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) functionalities, design files such as CAD
• Appropriate currency, language, and marketing preferences for international sales

Your digital assets and product data remain consistent across your organization and shopping channels, ensuring a transparent, pleasurable customer experience.

Marpipe

Today, marketing has to feel honest and authentic. Your marketing should be creative but never at the risk of becoming disingenuous. Marpipe enables you to perfect your marketing technique by testing and measuring the different variables of your creative. As a result, you develop the most trustworthy, effective versions to improve transparency and increase sales.

Ensuring transparency with clients – keep up with the competition

In today’s retail environment, customers gravitate towards retailers that deliver on their promises. Leading retailers are experts at transparency and creating enjoyable, easy customer experiences that always deliver what they promise. Even a single negative experience for a customer can permanently tarnish your reputation in the customer’s eyes. Because customers want reliability from their retailers, a focus on information that leads to confident purchases gives you an edge over the competition.

Whether it is accurate colors using enriched images and video, downloadable specs for technical purchases, or using logical product relationships for easy navigation, completely transparent product information will always outshine the competition.

5. Why is transparency important? – reap benefits of transparency

Intact Business Accountability

Just examining the effects of Fast Food Nation (2001) and Super Size Me (2004) on the fast-food sector will show why sacrificing openness to remain competitive is detrimental to an organization’s long-term viability. Companies these days, especially large ones, already have to battle against pervasive public mistrust.

Leaders can hold their company accountable and guarantee that every decision the organization makes is in its own best interest by providing data to both the public and employees. Additionally, the external return on investment is verified. Many researches have shown that consumers are willing to pay more for items made by transparent corporations for a transparent customer experience, like the previously mentioned Label Insight survey.

Improved Business Performance

Workers are only as good as the knowledge they have access to and the authority to make decisions that are given to them, due to transparency in business. To adopt a more decentralized approach to decision-making, VSCO has been restructuring its initial top-down structure using the following means:

• Establishing wikis within
• Exposing all Slack channels to the public (except those used for sensitive human resources procedures and budget planning)
• Enabling staff members to take initiative and act on potentially revolutionary ideas without waiting for leadership approval

Increased Efficiency

Through the internet shoe retailer Zappos gained notoriety for its dedication to creating a corporate culture that values transparency. Examples of this include internal databases and a “vendor extranet,” which lets staff members access all records of individual and group projects as well as budgets and expenses. Fred Mossler, the former head of Zappos’ merchandising department for almost 20 years, says that by ensuring that staff and business partners are in agreement, these steps save time and money that could otherwise be lost due to staff disengagement, mistrust, or a simple lack of understanding of the big picture.

Bottom line

Customer transparency and customer trust are more important in the digital age than ever now. This is why every brand from top to bottom is trying to be as transparent as possible for all of its procedures. Efficient data management can also help to improve customer transparency. You can get in touch with us at Pimberly for the best data management tools to elevate your brand image.